Kent Paedophile Jailed

A paedophile who filmed himself abusing girls as young as eight on a trip to the Philippines has been jailed for 19 years and six months for his ``depraved and revolting'' behaviour.

Trevor Monk, 47, travelled to the Far East with the sole purpose of abusing children and kept thousands of indecent pictures and videos on his computer, including mementos from his trip.

Sentencing him for a total of 18 offences today at the Old Bailey, Judge Anuja Dhir QC told Monk that the consequences of child abuse of this kind ``wrecks lives''.

She said: ``I have no doubt from the material I have seen today you had a perverted fascination with young females and that is what led you to behave in this abhorrent manner.

``Your actions were depraved and revolting. It is astonishing that anyone would want to film such abuse, but you did. I have no doubt you did so so that you could watch it again for your own sexual gratification.''

The court had heard how Monk gave ``facilitators'' thousands of pounds for access to the children during a two-week holiday to the Far East in the spring of 2014.

Between December 2010 and November 2014 he also transferred a total of £14,740 via Western Union to accounts in the Philippines in exchange for live streams of the abuse of young girls.

An examination of computers, external hard drives and memory cards found at Monk's home revealed tens of thousands of indecent images and videos of children.

Just one of the computers contained evidence of more than 43,000 indecent images of children.

Records of Yahoo chat logs revealed negotiation of payments between Monk and the women in the Philippines. In one discussion he told the woman ``£1,500 for the girl, £500 for you''.

Using the messaging service, Monk also arranged to meet up with his facilitators and young girls when he visited the Philippines.

Monk, of Cornelia Place, in Erith, Kent, had pleaded guilty to one count each of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, assault of a child under 13 by penetration, and sexual assault of a child under 13.

He further admitted two counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, six counts of causing a child to engage in a sexual act, one count of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, three counts of making indecent photographs of children and three counts of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Following his sentencing, Erica Hall, of aid charity World Vision UK, said: ``The widespread use of webcams coupled with dire economic conditions in many parts of the world means we're seeing many more cases of such vile abuse.

``This is partly a battle against the bizarre attitude of many offenders that it's somehow OK to carry out abuse overseas which they wouldn't commit in the UK - particularly if money is involved.

``It's encouraging that laws are keeping up with technology like webcam abuse but, while there are no reliable statistics, we suspect this is the tip of the iceberg with many cases still undetected.''

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